Description

Baja: Edge of Control is an off-road racing game based on the real-life Baja 1000 race series held in California. The tracks are set in a desert environment and there's over 1000 miles of route to explore. In the main career mode, the idea is to start at the bottom class of off-road racing with a VW Beetle. By performing well in races, players earn prize & sponsorship money and experience points to buy better machines and unlock higher classes. In order to secure the sponsorship money, their logos must still be on the car at the end of the race, so too much damage to the car will result in the player not getting paid. The vehicles can be tuned and modified to increase performance.

There are five different race modes; circuit which is a standard race where you do a few laps of a track against opponents, rally which a point to point time-trial, hill climb which as it suggests is drive up a steep hill, and then back down, open class where different categories of car race against each other with a handicap system in place to disadvantage the more powerful ones and Baja which is an endurance race lasting between 250-1000 miles. The Baja mode races can last up to several hours.

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Development

Baja: Edge of Control is the debut title of 2XL Games, Inc. The relatively small team includes a number of developers who are also involved with Rainbow Studios (now THQ Digital Studios Phoenix), a studio with similar titles and also closely tied to publisher THQ, Inc. Most of the art and the development was outsourced and many 2XL developers are later credited on Rainbow titles again. Almost all of the development and the outsourcing was handed to TQ Global, with the Singapore TQ Global Pte Ltd doing research and development, and the Chinese TQ Global, Ltd. responsible for most of the art and some development, along with a number of other Western developers. A number of people in the Master of Engineering programme with specialisation in game development at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore were also involved. Students cooperated in the production of a commercial project as a part of their training. The outsourcing was probably prompted by THQ's modest commission of US$10 million for the entire project.